Dear Wesleyan Community Members:
While on spring break this year, a truly momentous event occurred on March 11, when an earthquake struck off the coast of northeast Japan with a magnitude of 9.0. That in itself was a natural disaster with few peers in modern history. But the tsunami that followed made an already horrific earthquake into an unimaginable catastrophe. A wall of water that in some instances was higher than Usdan swept over entire towns and villages, in some instances with little or no warning. It swept inland for miles in some areas and up the sides of mountains in others. Where villages were located between the shore and mountains, there now is little more than mud flats.
We never will know the exact number of persons who died in the tsunami, but it is already well over ten thousand. There are hundreds of thousands of persons who managed to escape the tsunami but who have nothing but the clothes they wore at the time they fled. They have lost everything else, all that they owned, and in many cases they lost family members as well.
The only images that come close to the aerial pictures of the hardest hit towns and villages are those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki immediately after the nuclear bombings there. Only the occasional concrete structure is left standing, and the rest is rubble or nothing but flat earth where once there were houses and businesses, people tending to their ordinary lives until suddenly the earth reminded us that we live at its mercy.
Now, the nuclear disaster in Fukushima is reminding us that our need for energy also is putting our living spaces in peril.
But we can help. At present, the best ways we can be of assistance are by providing financial help through organizations that are able to send food, fuel, medicine, bedding and other needed goods directly to the people in need.
There are at least two ways we can do this. One is for large numbers of us to give what we can. If we can get 10 million people to give $10 each, we can provide a lot of support. The other is for small numbers of us to give large gifts. If you have access to the ears of anybody who controls large sums of money, by all means ask them to help with all that they can. Already, some corporations such as Boeing have provided multi-million dollar donations.
The American Red Cross’s text message donation of $10 has become famous: text REDCROSS to 90999 to send $10 to Japanese relief efforts.
Also, for news about what is happening on the ground and to see various ways to help, go directly to the Red Cross site: http://www.redcross.org/
In addition, there are a number of other groups to which you can donate:
Peace Winds Japan is a Japanese based organization that works for world peace and disaster relief. You can see their web site at: http://www.peace-winds.org/en/
You can donate to Peace Winds, which says that 100 percent of donations go to disaster relief, at: http://peacewindsamerica.org/support/
Another group is Convoy of Hope, which reports shipping 50,000 meals from the Philippines to Japan. Supplies are being sent to partners in Japan to be distributed to evacuation shelters and national churches. Donate at:
https://donate.convoyofhope.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=421
To help the elderly, a group particularly hard hit, please see consider donating to AmeriCares: “AmeriCares and its relief workers in Japan are working to deliver medicines and supplies to hospitals, shelters and health responders to treat and care for survivors.”
AmeriCares: http://www.americares.org
To help directly with medical care: “International Medical Corps’ emergency response team is assessing the post-disaster needs of isolated coastal villages north of Sendai that have yet to receive humanitarian assistance. They found acute shortages of food, water and some medicines, and survivors in need of mental health support.”
Donate to International Medical Corps: https://www.internationalmedicalcorps.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=1967 to the emergency response fund online or text MED to 80888 for a one-time $10 donation.
Be wary of requests for donations that are possible scams by going directly through established organizations.
Remember, we all live at the mercy of this great earth, and none of us know when a disaster of similar magnitude might strike closer to home. We live in a global community in which we all depend on each other although we might not always be aware of it. Now is a time in which we can help those whom we might not know but who are members of our community nonetheless and are now in great need.
Johnston is a professor of history.
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